GLACIER PARK 59 



its complexities. At nine o'clock the camp was still. I 

 heard one lone coyote barking just before I dropped to 

 sleep. 



The next day we climbed a peak that promised, ac- 

 cording to the topographical map, a splendid prospect. 

 A rope was necessary on part of the climb, over slippery 

 snowfields and around certain transverse ledges of 

 treacherous shale rock, but probably only the academic 

 climber is interested in such details, unless the climb is 

 made up some peak of peculiar fame or danger. Every 

 step of the first conquest of the Matterhorn is, of course, 

 an epic! Our first objective was a col in the Divide, 

 on the eastward side of which we knew lay Chancy 

 Glacier. We reached this col in two hours, finding the 

 Divide here but a few feet across. On the other side we 

 looked directly down on the glacier, now but a vast, un- 

 broken snowfield which swept against the red cliff 

 walls in long white slides like surf beating up the coast of 

 Maine. Half a mile out the glacier dropped off into 

 space, and beyond the rim we could see the canon of the 

 Belly River holding in its depths a lake of iceberg green 

 which turned to vivid lilac when a cloud shadow 

 crossed it. North of the canon, and not more than ten 

 or a dozen miles from our perch, .rose the grim rock 

 pyramid of Mount Cleveland, 10,500 feet, the highest 

 mountain in the Park, though far from the most impres- 

 sive. To the northeast, beyond the canon mouth, was 

 the infinite ocean, still and level to the horizon a hun- 



